As electronic technology has become more advanced and has been more readily available to the common populace, computer users have become acutely aware of privacy issues surrounding use of computers and related technology. These privacy issues related, not only to traditionally confidential material (as in commercially private information or national defense information) but to personal information, such as social security numbers, credit card information, bank account numbers and data, medical information, and so forth. It is no longer difficult for a person to use another person's social security number with other personal information to obtain access to bank accounts, new or replacement credit cards a birth certificate with which other documents can be obtained, etc. Once armed with this private information, a misfeasor can inflict financial and emotional damage on an unwitting victim.
As computer networks and printers associated with them have proliferated in the workplace, one problem with protecting confidentiality can result-from an employee submitting a print job to a network printer. If the employee submits a print job to a network printer that is not in the immediate vicinity of the employee, the information will be printed by the printer and will remain on the printer for the time it takes the employee to get to the printer and retrieve the document. Since several users use a network printer, another employee or superior may be situated at the printer when the private document is printed, or shortly after the document is printed but before the first employee has arrived to retrieve the document.
Especially in the case of where the second employee is at the printer to retrieve a print job printed by that employee, it is natural that the second employee will examine, if only briefly, the private document in an attempt to determine if that document is the document that was printed by the second employee. The private document may contain personal information that the first employee would not want revealed to other employees. For example, the letter might be a letter to the first employee's lawyer about a current legal problem. Obviously, even the fact that the first employee is dealing with a lawyer may be information that the first employee does not want any other employee to know.
Another problem that arises is a case in which the employee submits the print job, but then gets distracted by a telephone call or some other diversion. It is not uncommon in such a situation for the employee to forget that the print job was sent and remains on the printer. This makes it probable that the document will be read by a fellow employee or, if personal information that may be used to ‘steal’ the identity of the employee, it is more vulnerable to be retrieved by a non-employee or an after-hours employee who has relatively private access to the printer.
One solution that has been used to avoid such problems is to require information, such as a private code or private password, to be entered at the printer by the employee to activate the print job. Although the print file associated with the print job is processed normally, the print file remains in the printer until the employee activates the print job. This ensures that the employee is located at the printer when the print job is printed and, thus, personally retrieves the printed document.
A problem with this solution is that it requires the printer to have a complex control panel that includes alphanumeric keys to enable a user to enter a pass code or password. This adds unnecessary expense to the printer if the printer users have no other need for entering alphanumeric information into the printer.